Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

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'One of my favourite science writers' - Bill Gates

'Hugely important' - Jim Al-Khalili

For decades, biology has been dominated by information - the power of genes. Yet there is no difference in information content between a living cell and one that died a moment ago. A better question goes back to the formative years of biology: what processes animate cells and set them apart from lifeless matter

In Transformer, Nick Lane turns the standard view upside down, capturing an extraordinary scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight. At its core is an amazing cycle of reactions that uses energy to transform inorganic molecules into the building blocks of life - and the reverse. To understand this cycle is to fathom the deep coherence of the living world. It connects the origin of life with the devastation of cancer, the first photosynthetic bacteria with our own mitochondria, sulphurous sludges with the emergence of consciousness, and the trivial differences between ourselves with the large-scale history of our planet.

Reviews

'A stone-cold classic' - Adam Rutherford

'One of the most creative of today's biologists ... this is a book filled with big ideas, many of which are bold instances of lateral thinking' - New Scientist

'Bold ... passionate ... a dramatically revisionist account [of the] origins of life' - New Yorker

'A thrilling tour of the remarkable stories behind the discoveries of some of life's key metabolic pathways and mechanisms. He lays bare the human side of science ... The book brings to life the chemistry that brings us to life ... masterful' - Science

'Deeply researched and cogently written' - Nature

Author Bio

Nick Lane is a biochemist and writer. He is Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London, and the author of Life Ascending, which won the 2010 Royal Society Prize, and The Vital Question, of which Bill Gates wrote 'this biology book blew me away'. His excellence in communicating science was recognised by the Royal Society Faraday Prize in 2016. His lab is attempting to recreate the chemical conditions that drove the origin of life on Earth.